The Juliette Society (18 page)

Dickie’s sitting talking to me, expounding on the mechanics of cement with his legs crossed. His cock and balls hang listlessly over his thigh, looking about as bored as I feel.

Freddie’s a lot younger, young enough to be Dickie’s son, and he seems to be wearing the cassock that goes with Dickie’s cape; as if they went halves on the costume rental and flipped a coin to see who got what.

As Dickie talks, I’m overcome by an ineffable sadness, but I’m trying my best to hide it. I’m trying to seem interested and maintain a conversation. But I’ve never called anyone Dickie in my life and I’m not about to start. So I call him Richard instead.

I say, ‘Richard —’

‘Dickie,’ he says, cutting me off for the third or fourth time, ‘call me Dickie.’ And for the third or fourth time, I pretend like I haven’t heard.

‘OK, Richard,’ I say, ‘so give it to me again, what are the advantages of using high slump and shrinkage-reduced concrete?’

I’m taking in just enough lingo to be able to fake it, throwing something back to make him think I’m listening.

Now I’ve shown a smidgen of interest, and it almost kind of sounds like I know what I’m talking about, Dickie takes it as a go-ahead to really let rip. I zone out.

On the wall behind Dickie there are a series of framed reproductions of scratchy, primitive drawings of men and women fucking in various configurations. I recognize them immediately as the drawings from a book Brigitte Bardot is flicking through in Godard’s
Contempt
, the book that the vulgar American producer has given her screenwriter husband in order to help him sex up a script by German director Fritz Lang that’s all arty Greek myth with zero box office potential. He’s given Bardot’s screenwriter husband a book of Ancient Roman pornographic art to jerk off to in the hope that it will bleed into his writing and give this producer enough bang for his buck to put asses on seats. And the pictures, that are in that book and on these walls, were created for a specific purpose, as a kind of instructional sex manual and erotic stimulant for the patrons of a brothel in Pompeii, which was where they were found. And I’m guessing they’re here for the same purpose too.

Dickie’s talking and the only words I register are ‘discharge’, ‘vibrators’ and ‘staining’. I lose track of whether he’s still talking cement or just talking dirty to me, but I figure that if ready-mix concrete gets Dickie hard, he’s probably a man who’s easily pleased. I’m just not the right person to do his pleasing.

Staining, I say.

‘Yeah, doll, staining,’ he says. ‘From impurities. In the water.’

Oh, I say. And zone straight out again. I look around the room at all the other naked men and women, of all ages shapes and sizes, and I wonder what industries they work in.

Plastics. Biotech. Small arms. Petroleum. Pharmaceuticals. Logistics. Futures commodities.

Because all those nameless faceless bureaucrats who head corporations you’ve never even heard of but whose influence and decision-making extends invisibly into every corner of your daily life – from the pills you take before breakfast, to the gas you put in your car and the memory foam pillow you rest your head on at night – those people have sex lives too. They have to fuck. And I imagine this is where they do it. Right here. At a high end sex party like this, designed to protect their dignity, if not their modesty. Wearing masks so they can be as anonymous in their private lives as they are in their public ones.

I feel a sudden urge to pee, and realize it’s the perfect excuse for us to ditch Dickie and Freddie.

I say, ‘If you’ll please excuse us, gentlemen. We need to go to the ladies’ room.’

We walk away as fast as our heels will carry us, to an upstairs bathroom.

We’re standing side by side at the bathroom mirror, touching up our make-up and I say to Anna, I thought that scene with Marquis de Sade was bad. ‘What is this place?’

‘They call it the Juliette Society,’ she says.

‘What the hell is that?’ I say.

‘I don’t know much more,’ she says. ‘That’s just what they call it. Let’s put it like this, the Fuck Factory is for regular people. These people aren’t regular people.’

I can see that, I say. ‘How on earth did Bundy get access to this place?’

‘Oh, you know,’ she giggles, ‘Bundy’s full of surprises. He moves in mysterious ways.’

‘How do you mean?’ I ask, intrigued.

‘Well,’ she says. ‘He may look low rent but he comes from money. He’s got a thing for rich girls who are like him and will do anything for him. The kind of girls that have six-figure trust funds but work as strippers. He’s even got a website for them.’

‘Let me guess,’ I say, ‘Filthy Rich Bitches?’

‘How did you know?’ Anna says, sounding genuinely surprised.

‘Just an educated hunch.’

I’m reapplying my lipstick and Anna’s dusting her cheeks with blush. She’s checking her face in the mirror to make sure it’s evenly applied and, as she does so, she says, ‘You know, older guys really know how to please a woman.’

Just when I think I’ve heard it all from Anna, she’ll drop another pearl of wisdom, another gem that turns my head. She never ceases to amaze me. And she says it as if it’s the most casual thing in the world.

‘How so?’

‘Because they’re as horny as eighteen-year-olds but their bodies just can’t keep up.’

I burst out laughing.

‘I’m serious,’ she says. ‘They go at it like maniacs until they’re winded, then they have to stop to recover and build up their stamina. Then it starts all over again. That way they can keep going all night.’

‘But aren’t young guys like that too – what’s the difference?’

And as I say it, I feel like I’m back in that room with Dickie.

‘Young guys always have something to prove,’ she says, twisting her lipstick open. ‘And, as a general rule, the ones who are really good-looking are so vain they have zero imagination in the sack.’

‘Yeah, I know exactly what you mean,’ I say, recalling my All-Star football player ex.

‘They usually want to fuck in front of mirror so they can check themselves out from every angle,’ she continues, ‘as if they’re directing their own personal porn movie. They’re fucking themselves and you’re just part of the set design. But old guys are more concerned with making sure you feel good. And they always want to try something new, because they’ve done it all before and know every trick in the book.

‘And another thing,’ she says, while adjusting her mask. ‘A hard cock never shows its age. It really doesn’t matter how old it is, as long as it’s still fully functional. And these guys, you barely have to touch them. They pop a Viagra and they get hard in a flash.’

She clicks her fingers.

I don’t know how long we were in the bathroom, but when we come out it’s not the same party. Not at all. The energy in the place has changed. It’s as if while we were away, someone rang a bell, like the one that signals the opening of the markets at the stock exchange and, a split second later, the trading floor becomes a frenzy of activity, an orgy of keystrokes.

No one’s talking now. Everyone’s fucking. Partnered off in twos or three and fours, or maybe going solo, just getting off on watching.

We’re standing at the top of the stairs and I’m taking this all in and, I have to say, it’s pretty overwhelming and I realize that this time there’s nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. It’s time to put up or shut up. I need to take a minute to gather myself, to take a breath and dive in.

‘Go down,’ I tell Anna, ‘I’ll join you in a minute. I just want to watch up here for a little bit.’

‘OK,’ she says, and bounds down the stairs like a lamb galloping in a field, eager to join the fray.

I’m leaning over the banister, looking down the well at people fucking in the main room, and I catch this guy across the way staring at me. And I really don’t know what it is with me and strange men at the moment. I must be giving off some kind of smell.

Something draws me to the mask he’s wearing, so much more elaborate than the others I’ve seen here. And then it hits me. He’s the man from my dream, the Renaissance man in the harlequin mask who unlocks me.

I figure all this out in the split-second from when I first see him to the moment he starts moving towards me. My heart starts pounding. I’m paralyzed with anticipation and he’s honing in on me like a predator drone. Time slows down. It feels like I’m watching him move towards me in slow motion. I’m taking him all in, lost in the details.

He carries himself with a swagger, so cocksure and certain of his appeal. His skin is tanned and leathery but his body is taut and muscular and toned. He looks like he takes care of himself, like he works out. His physique is speaking to me and it tells me that this man knows his power and how to use it. And he looks good for his age, whatever that is, but I’m guessing he must be in his forties, at least.

Now he’s so close I can smell him. He smells rich. By the time he’s in front of me, I’m hooked. There’s something about him, but I just can’t put my finger on it. Then it hits me. Something about him reminds me of Jack.

Not Jack now. Jack later. Jack sometime in the future.

I always told myself that I wanted to grow old with Jack. Sometimes I liked to imagine what we’d be like when we’re in our fifties or sixties, when we’d lived half a lifetime in each other’s company. I wondered how we’d look with all that living under our belt, how we’d relate to each other, how we’d fuck.

And this guy, I’ve decided right then and there, that he represents my fantasy of how Jack might turn out when we’re older, what he’ll look like, how he’ll carry himself.

And I know how that sounds. It sounds like an excuse, and in a way it is. It’s an excuse that my brain has come up with to explain the way my body is feeling. Because I feel an immense attraction to this man, whose identity I don’t know and never will. A man who’s a blank canvas to me, on whom I can project whatever fantasy I want. And live it and experience it. For real.

He offers me his hand. I take it without hesitation or reserve. When he leads me back downstairs into the main room, it feels like we’re like two dizzy young lovers out on the boardwalk for a Sunday afternoon stroll.

As we walk in, I see Dickie and Freddie, already double-teaming on Anna, and I can’t say I’m surprised. She’s on her hands and knees on this worn antique leather couch. Freddie is at her rear. And Dickie has his dick in Anna’s mouth and one leg up on the couch. He has his hands placed on his lower back, just above his hips, the way you sometimes see guys posed in porn when they’re getting a blow job. As if he’s got lumbago.

And, surprise, surprise, Dickie’s got his socks on. But they’re expensive-looking socks. Argyle dress socks. By Ralph Lauren.

Freddie’s clearly not so particular. He’s buck naked. I’ve got to give it to her, Anna’s really going for it. She’s showing those two fellows a real good time. Dickie has a grin on his face a mile wide, as you would if you had a cute young chick as filthy and willing as Anna slapping her cheeks with your penis, the way Anna’s doing, and slut-talking him at the same time.

‘You’re a dirty old man,’ she says to Dickie. ‘A dirty, dirty, dirty old man. Dickie, Dickie, Dickie. And his filthy old dickie.’

I’m not sure if she’s talking to Dickie or his penis but I’d say they’re both enjoying it equally.

Then she turns around to Freddie and tells him, ‘Oh yeah, daddy, ream with your rod. Do it, daddy Freddie, just the way I like it. Oh, fuck, yeah.’

My masked man leads me all the way to the end of the room, as if he’s parading me in front of everybody, showing me off. He motions me to sit in this oversized antique easy chair with red suede upholstery. I sit down with my legs closed together and my hands on my lap, as prim and proper as a Catholic schoolgirl. He looks at me, smiles, and taps the arm of the chair. And he doesn’t have to say anything, I already know what he wants, what he expects.

I swing my legs up over each arm of the chair and slide my butt forward to the edge of the seat. He kneels down in front of me, takes my left foot in his hands and starts kneading the sole with his thumbs, walking them up and down the way a cat tests a comfy chair before it settles down. When he reaches the top, he brushes his thumb along the base of the toes, then sweeps his finger up the length of each toe, separates them, and explores the space between.

I close my eyes so I can shut out the world and concentrate on each caress and touch and, before I know it, he’s kissing the sole of my foot, sucking on each toe, circling around and between them with his tongue. And it’s heavenly.

I feel him running his fingers up the inside of my legs, tracing around the crotch and brushing against my pussy, then parting the lips with his finger and thumb. My pussy is already damp and wet and sticky. I feel him lapping at my pussy with long, steady, insistent strokes of his tongue, the way a cat cleans its fur. His mask is pressed up hard against my clit and the nose rubs back and forth against it, as he works his mouth around my crotch, licking, flicking and sucking. I feel his tongue probing around my hole. He plunges inside and it feels so good that I let out a moan and slide my hips forward so I can spear myself on his tongue. But as soon as I do, he withdraws, teasing me.

He puts his hands on my legs, clasps them together and lifts them up so my feet are over my head, and pussy is sticking out, wet and plump and in full view. I wrap my arms around my legs to hold them in place while he puts one hand on my thigh and gives my pussy a quick little slap with the other. I give out a little yelp, and I don’t know whether it’s in response to the sting or the sound, but it gives him an incentive to do it again. He slaps my pussy again and I can feel my clit throb as his hand withdraws.

Then his mouth is back on me again but this time it’s fixed firmly around my clitoris, and I can feel him drawing me into his mouth, sucking hard then flicking the head with his tongue, sweeping it across the hood, blowing on it, sucking on it again, licking it. And every time he’s gone through a cycle of sucking, blowing, biting and licking, he switches it up so I don’t know what’s coming next. And it feels so good that I let out a series of little syncopated pants and moans.